DESCRIPTION (Taken from the applicants abstract): This application seeks partial support for the Ninth Gordon Conference on Proteoglycans scheduled for July 9-14, 2000, at Proctor Academy in Andover, New Hampshire. The previous conference was held July 5-9, 1998, at the same site. More than 200 applications were received, from which 151 registered participants were selected for a full capacity conference. All eight conferences to date have been over-subscribed. The 1998 conference was rated by attendees and Gordon Conference staff as "outstanding." The Gordon Conference on Proteoglycans is the main venue for presentation and discussion of current and future directions in the proteoglycan field, and consistently leads to new insights, new interactions, new collaborations, and new research directions. In planning the Nineth Conference on Proteoglycans, they will build on the successful tradition of previous conferences. The conference will take a broad approach to the structure, metabolism, molecular and biological functions, and pathology of this important class of macromolecules. This year will have a heavy emphasis on genetic systems for studying proteoglycans in normal and pathophysiology. In addition, some of the speakers will be selected to describe novel systems that might impact future research on proteoglycans (i.e., non-mammalian genetic systems). The scientific program sessions will initially focus on novel developments in the proteoglycan field followed by talks on basic aspects of structure, biosynthesis and metabolism. These topics will be followed by sessions on the proteoglycan/protein interactions and the modulation of growth factor activities and signaling. Subsequent sessions will focus on the specific roles of certain proteoglycans during development, with special emphasis on the use of gene disruption methods, followed by session focused on cardiovascular and cancer biology. A final session will consider an emerging area of proteoglycan/microbial interactions and the critical area of use and manipulation of proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans as therapeutic agents.